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Alluvial – The Deep Longing for Annihilation (Technical Death Metal)

Formed in 2016 by the mastermind Wes Hauch (Black Crown Initiate, ex-The Faceless) and Keith Merrow (Conquering Dystopia and Demisery) Alluvial had a lot of metal fans eager to see what the duo could come up with on their first release. The time is finally here and Alluvial gives us a late Christmas gift to kick off 2017 in style.

You will notice very fast that Alluvial is a different kind of band as it features no vocalist. This is purely instrumental (which some of you might guess seeing it involves Keith Merrow). It’s hard to pull off an album entirely instrumental due to many reasons. Will the listener be interested in the album for the whole 52 minutes? Will the duo be able to express themselves well enough with only instruments? Questions like these needs to be answered on everyone single one listening. A reason my girlfriend isn’t a big fan of, as an example, Moonsorrow is due to them having too long songs and she ends up changing to track five minutes in.

I have to say I am quite surprised how well this album is executed. Even without vocals The Deep Longing for Annihilation is emotional and gets to you. The album is not for everyone but any fans of atmospheric and technical metal can certainly enjoy their time with it. An interesting project to say the least that turned out better than I expected with this being the first fully instrumental album I’ve reviewed. I recommend you to listen to a song or two first before making your mind up on this album. Just don’t give this album a miss simply because it’s an instrumental one, since with Wes and Keith on guitars they know how to express themselves even without vocals!